TV Lookout: highlights (and lowlights) for the week

This Monday through Friday is the big push, the main event, when 16 of the fall season's 31 new series will take their bow, including all six of NBC's. So make your plans, program your TiVo, lay in the snacks and take your phone off the hook.

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Here, night by night, is what's in store on this viewing marathon:

MONDAY

-"Surface" (8 p.m. EDT, NBC). A sci-fi fish tale about strange sea life washing up all over the globe. Stars Lake Bell as a pretty oceanographer trying to figure out what these crazy creatures are.

-"How I Met Your Mother" (8:30 p.m., CBS). A promising sitcom about pals and their gals living in New York, one of whom decides it's time he found Ms. Right and settled down. Judging from the title, he will - but who she is remains to be seen. Stars Neil Patrick Harris as one of the pals.

- "Kitchen Confidential" (8:30 p.m., Fox). Chef Jack Bourdain was a rising culinary star who crashed and burned. Now sobered up, he lands a comeback gig as chef at a ritzy Manhattan restaurant. Can he make it cook? This single-camera comedy was created by Darren Star ("Sex and the City").

- "Just Legal" (9 p.m., WB). A teenage legal prodigy and a courtroom burnout (the latter played by Don Johnson of "Nash Bridges") join forces defending the unjustly wronged in this drama with comic overtones.

- "Out of Practice" (9:30 p.m., CBS). A sitcom about an ill-assorted family of physicians who squabble and hug, it stars TV veterans Paula Marshall, Stockard Channing and Henry Winkler.

TUESDAY

- "My Name is Earl" (9 p.m., NBC). A low-life opts for the high road after winning the lottery. Stars Jason Lee as the title character, who resolves to right a history of wrongs for the sake of self-redemption and that "karma stuff."

WEDNESDAY

- "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" (8 p.m., NBC). A spinoff of the Donald Trump original, this reality competition stars America's best-known female magnate/inmate.

- "E-Ring" (9 p.m., NBC). A slick, fast-paced thriller about global security set in the high-tech world of the Pentagon. Stars Benjamin Bratt and Dennis Hopper.

- "Invasion" (10 p.m., ABC). Set in a small Florida town, this series imagines there are aliens in the citizens' midst, converting them one by one - with the sheriff the apparent ringleader. This sci-fi drama stars William Fichtner and Eddie Cibrian.

THURSDAY

- "Everybody Hates Chris" (8 p.m., UPN). This sweet-natured comedy tells the story of a black kid in Brooklyn in the early 1980s, on his way to growing up to be Chris Rock, the celebrated comedian - who created the show and furnishes its off-screen narration.

- "Love, Inc." (8:30 p.m., UPN). Holly Robinson Peete and Busy Philipps star in this sitcom as dating consultants who bring singles together while their own love lives are falling apart.

- "Criminal Minds" (10 p.m., ABC). A sort of Justice League of FBI profilers who try to read the mind of a maniac they haven't met yet, so they can see the future in time to prevent his crime. This drama, which stars Mandy Patinkin and Thomas Gibson, moves to its regular day and time - 9 p.m. Wednesdays - on Sept. 28.

FRIDAY

- "Ghost Whisperer" (8 p.m., CBS). In this family drama, Jennifer Love Hewitt stars as a young woman who can communicate with earthbound spirits, helping them settle their material chores before moving to the great beyond.

- "Killer Instinct" (9 p.m., Fox). This brutish drama makes good on its title, starring Johnny Messner as a detective in the San Francisco cops' Deviant Crime Unit. Chi McBride co-stars as his boss.

- "Three Wishes" (9 p.m., NBC). Heartwarming reality show where recording artist Amy Grant hits a small town and makes dreams (at least three of 'em) come true. Get ready to smile through the tears.

- "Inconceivable" (10 p.m., NBC). A creatively sterile drama about a fertility clinic, it stars Jonathan Cake, Ming-Na and Angie Harmon. Strictly ill-conceived.